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Author Topic: Z grills issue?  (Read 1807 times)

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Free Mr. Tony

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Z grills issue?
« on: June 06, 2020, 09:34:31 PM »

I got a z grills pellet grill on clearance awhile back. I mainly bought it to try to use the hopper assembly on my charcoal/stick burner. I was having trouble maintaining smoking temps, and kind of thought it just didn't work well with my setup.

Recently, I installed the hopper on the z grill barrel since it didn't work well on the other cooker. I haven't really tried to smoke much on it until the last few days. The grill seems to do fine when set to 300 or over. When set to 275 or 250, it just kind of hovers around 220-235 with no real ups and downs. Won't ever actually hit set temp.

In all the pellet grills I've had, I've never actually had a temp probe or controller issue. I've read alot about them, but never experienced it. So anyone have any probable solutions?  I know from reading in the past alot of the programming on the controllers is set for "smoke" under 300 and "grill" over 300. It seems that is the problem cutoff so I'm not sure what to think. 

Here is a pic of the controller so you know the type that it is. Also, I have an email in to zgrills. Depending on where I get with them, I may need to find a replacement controller. Anyone have one of this old style laying around they want to sell on the cheap?

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Bentley

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Re: Z grills issue?
« Reply #1 on: June 06, 2020, 10:03:57 PM »

So it has the Traeger P setting type of adjustment?
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Free Mr. Tony

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Re: Z grills issue?
« Reply #2 on: June 06, 2020, 10:22:01 PM »

So it has the Traeger P setting type of adjustment?

Not that I can tell. To my knowledge, there is no user end adjustment. Other than that feature, it is very similar to the older style Traeger controllers.
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Bar-B-Lew

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Re: Z grills issue?
« Reply #3 on: June 06, 2020, 11:16:46 PM »

I have a Traeger controller that is about 8-10 years old that I could send you for the cost of the shipping.  I complained about temp swings with the dealer I bought my XL from and they sent me a new controller.  Now that I know more about pellet grills, I suspect that the controller never had a problem.  PM me if you want it.
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Canadian John

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Re: Z grills issue?
« Reply #4 on: June 07, 2020, 08:31:10 AM »


 The controller appears to me to be a Traeger/ Traeger clone of recent vintage. These controllers don't have an adjustable "P" setting as witnessed by the absence of the small P setting hole on the right side of

 the display window. They are preset @ P 2 if I recall..

 The smoke mode is timed by the P setting and would almost always maintain a constant temperature IF left alone w/o opening the lid. This smoke temp was dependant on rseveral factors; preheat, ambient

 and wind - for the most part.

 Once an actual temp was selected is where the problems began. 180º up to, 275º resulted in an unstable temp range. It could be good then for whatever reason, the temps rose well past their settings. The

lower the setting, the more out of whack the temps became.  300º and up presented few temp swing problems.

 All the early controller problems led us to what most pits use today  - PID controllers.. The early Traeger controllers were Ortech, developed and manufactured in USA. Traeger found they could save $ by

sourcing the controllers and pits to China. The Chinese mass produced the controllers that were sold to anyone wanting them. That is why so many entry level pits use them.   :2cents:
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Free Mr. Tony

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Re: Z grills issue?
« Reply #5 on: June 07, 2020, 09:39:41 AM »


 The controller appears to me to be a Traeger/ Traeger clone of recent vintage. These controllers don't have an adjustable "P" setting as witnessed by the absence of the small P setting hole on the right side of

 the display window. They are preset @ P 2 if I recall..

 The smoke mode is timed by the P setting and would almost always maintain a constant temperature IF left alone w/o opening the lid. This smoke temp was dependant on rseveral factors; preheat, ambient

 and wind - for the most part.

 Once an actual temp was selected is where the problems began. 180º up to, 275º resulted in an unstable temp range. It could be good then for whatever reason, the temps rose well past their settings. The

lower the setting, the more out of whack the temps became.  300º and up presented few temp swing problems.

 All the early controller problems led us to what most pits use today  - PID controllers.. The early Traeger controllers were Ortech, developed and manufactured in USA. Traeger found they could save $ by

sourcing the controllers and pits to China. The Chinese mass produced the controllers that were sold to anyone wanting them. That is why so many entry level pits use them.   :2cents:

At one point in time I was very familiar with all the ins and outs of the old Traeger controllers. I have forgotten most of what I knew, so thanks for the refresher.

I pulled it apart this morning and checked all the connections. I fired it back up with the controller hanging out so I could watch the auger.

I'm not so worried about the typical wild swings you get with these controllers. My problem is that it won't actually reach the set temp once it goes into it's timing sequence.

I don't remember the timing cycle, but I timed a few cycles this morning.

-Started in smoke mode
-set to 275
-It went through some sort of startup timing from what I could tell theb eventually was auger 100% until it hit 275.  So far so good.
- It shot past to 295 or so which I know from past experience is normal.
-at this time the auger was on for 15 seconds off for 60 seconds.
- it eventually dropped down under 275 and this seems to be the issue.
-once under the set temp the auger goes to 15 seconds on and 30 seconds off
-with that timing it never gets back to 275
-it has been hovering around 255 for about 20 minutes now.

Also as just an observation, it doesn't really seem to smoke much at all because there are virtually no swings whatsoever when it goes into the under set temp sequence.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2020, 09:43:20 AM by Free Mr. Tony »
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Canadian John

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Re: Z grills issue?
« Reply #6 on: June 07, 2020, 11:24:30 AM »

 
 That does sound like the controller has an issue. In smoke mode, either set to smoke or once the set temp is reached, it augers for 15 sec then goes into P (pause) mode. When adjustable, that was in

 increments of 5 sec. With the fixed P setting it would be 10 sec if in fact that is what the setting is. Nonetheless, once a temperature is selected with the start-up cycle completed, the auger should be on full

 time until the set temp is reached. At that point it goes into smoke mode until the temp drops to (not 100% sure) 3º below the set temp* then agers until the set temp is reached and the cycle continues.

* This is where the problem lies: The controller is not responding to the restart the auger signal, that 3º below the set temp.. Sorry. That's as far as I can go with my limited knowledge.

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Free Mr. Tony

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Re: Z grills issue?
« Reply #7 on: June 07, 2020, 11:45:05 AM »

Anyone know if there is a way to possibly factory reset the controller?  I knew how to get into change the parameters on my Louisiana grill, but not this one.
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Canadian John

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Re: Z grills issue?
« Reply #8 on: June 07, 2020, 12:52:09 PM »

 
 Possibly, Traeger would know to????
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Free Mr. Tony

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Re: Z grills issue?
« Reply #9 on: June 09, 2020, 05:59:41 PM »

Z grills is sending a new controller. Hopefully that will solve the issue. I hope that it works with my charcoal grill as originally intended. Kind of funny that the one time I planned on using a hopper outside of the original cooker, I end up with a bum controller. Glad I tested it as intended to find out there was an issue.
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Free Mr. Tony

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Re: Z grills issue?
« Reply #10 on: June 10, 2020, 09:13:11 PM »

I got some strange email responses at odd times from z grills, but I have to hand it to them on timeliness. I had an email yesterday saying they would ship a controller, and it showed up today. They did ship what I believe is an earlier version that does not have probe ports like the one I have.

I'm not concerned about the ports so I put it in to try it out. Ran like it should, so I dismantled to hook up my charcoal grill. It will take some playing around, but it is responding much better than the last time I gave it a whirl.
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Canadian John

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Re: Z grills issue?
« Reply #11 on: June 11, 2020, 09:55:56 AM »


 That sounds good.. If for whatever reason the controller conks out, you may want to consider the American designed + manufactured Ortech. Not expensive, reliable + performs well.  :2cents:
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Free Mr. Tony

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Re: Z grills issue?
« Reply #12 on: June 11, 2020, 08:01:55 PM »


 That sounds good.. If for whatever reason the controller conks out, you may want to consider the American designed + manufactured Ortech. Not expensive, reliable + performs well.  :2cents:

Yes. I have had ortech in the past and they were a bit better. I would probably just buy one of Billy's controllers if I were to purchase one. If you didn't know, an old Pelletheads guy created the Savannah Stoker many years ago. I've used them on different models over the years, and it's a really good controller.
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Free Mr. Tony

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Re: Z grills issue?
« Reply #13 on: June 25, 2020, 10:36:55 AM »



I just wanted to extend a big thank you to Brushpopper.  After I mentioned the Savannah Stoker controller on here, he sent me a message that he had one laying around that he wouldn't use.

I got the controller the other day, and immediately installed it. After downloading a version of the manual that didn't quite line up with this model, I was still able to get enough info to make some parameter adjustments.

As I had hoped with a customizable controller, this has pretty much solved the temp issues that I was having. I adjusted the cycle time to compensate for the large space, as well as a few other things. I'm still trying to get it to smoke more in the 250 range, but temp wise it is rock solid. At 225, I start getting a more steady blue stream. I'd rather cook a little hotter though.

If anyone recognises the model and has a manual or digital document that would be fantastic. There are alot of menu options on this one that I didn't see in the version I downloaded.

Anyway, thanks again Brushpopper! 

Also, thanks to Bar-b-lew for offering up an extra Traeger controller.

You guys are great.
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yorkdude

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Re: Z grills issue?
« Reply #14 on: June 25, 2020, 10:49:16 AM »

That thing is a beast, man that is neat.
Glad you got a good start on getting it figured out.
Awful nice of them to help you also, way to go everyone.
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